This is probably the sort of post that should be made in January, not at the end of July. After all, it’s kinda like that whole “still not used to the change in the calendar and still in the habit of writing last year’s year on the check” thing. Nevertheless:

Just about everyone has a copyright notice of some kind on their Web site. But it’s remarkable how many of those notices are out of date for companies that are active today.

Takeaway for marketers: Check (and fix!) the copyright notice on your site! Having “(c)2003” on your home page in the year 2005 makes it look like you’ve been out of business for a couple of years.

eMarketer Daily drew attention this past Wednesday to a Pew Internet & American Life Project study regarding what Americans do and don’t know about Internet-related terms (access a PDF of the study results here).

Only 13% have a good idea of what “podcasting” means … just 9% have a good idea of what “RSS feeds” are … 22% either never heard of the terms “firewall” or “spyware” or are not really sure what they mean … and as a rule, men are more likely than women to be aware of the terms surveyed, which also included “spam,” “Internet cookies,” “Adware,” and “Internet phishing.”

Interesting stuff, particularly for us inside-the-Beltway online marketing types.

“I want to do as well as I can at whatever I attempt, and someday to die with a peaceful mind.”
—George Harrison

Forbes has evidently titled its RSS feeds in a way that there’s a space before the “F” in “Forbes.” This means that in some feed readers (well, at least BlogExpress), Forbes will appear at the top of the category, above the feeds named with an “A.” It can be renamed, of course, but when the feed synchronizes, it automatically un-renames, so the space returns.

I tested this with several Forbes feeds, just to see if it was a titling typo on the first one to which I subscribed. It wasn’t, so I’m guessing it’s deliberate. It’s sort of an RSS version of naming yourself “AAAA Auto Parts,” the goal of course being that you appear first (or close to first) in the Yellow Pages listings.

As an anal-retentive lunatic, I find this irritating, and a reason not to subscribe to Forbes feeds.

AOL Alerts sends me this email the other day:

The New AOL.com is Here!
The all-new AOL.com has arrived. The next time you’re away from your home PC and want to access your favorite AOL features, just point your browser to www.aol.com on any Internet-connected computer. You’ll have access to your AOL email, instant messages, news, radio and a whole lot more. It’s perfect for staying in touch with AOL while at work, on vacation or on the go.

Except that I don’t care about staying in touch with AOL, and I’m guessing most AOL members don’t care, either. I want to stay in touch with family and friends, with business associates, with the news, with my email, with … well, you get the idea. Is staying in touch with AOL really the most compelling reason for keeping the AOL membership I’ve had since they were upgrading to 2.0?

“All-new AOL”? Seems pretty much like the old AOL with a hefty shot of Botox. Which is fine. But how about some new features? Imagine the buzz had AOL beat Microsoft to the punch and incorporated an easy-to-use RSS feed reader into the “all-new AOL.”

USA Today has an interesting article about all this, asking the salient questions: “Does it pay to become an AOL member anymore? If you already subscribe, is it worth sticking around?” Their salient conclusion: “The answers might not be as clear-cut as you think.”

As Groucho famously says in Duck Soup: “More bad news.”